Sultan Suleiman the Great I wanted to destroy the island of Malta because there could find a shelter all the Christian ships. So he appointed Pasha Selim Pialis as the Admiral of the Fleet. Pasha Pialis came from Hungary and he was an implacable enemy of the Christians. He was ordered to invade Malta first and then Chios. The Sultan couldn’t stand seeing Giustiniani, Governors of Chios, offering protection to almost a thousand prisoners of the Turks.
Pasha Pialis failed to conquer Malta and on the Good Week arrived in Chios with three hundred ships (Giustiniani mentioned one hundred, Theotokas and Hammer mentioned eighty). The representative of Giustiniani in Constantinople was aboard on one of these ships. The Mahonis sent twelve delegates to Pasha in order to offer him great presents. The Pasha threw them into prison and on 17th April 1566 reached the port of Chios. He and his great army disembarked and they headed for the palace of Giustiniani. There addressing to Mahonis, he made a speech and he accused them of
- offering protection to the prisoners of the Turks
- getting into contact with the King of Spain in secret
- not paying their taxes.
The Mahonis responded that all these were slanders and they offered him a lot of money so as to lure him. The Pasha was not tempted and he ordered the booty of the town. The Turks desecrated the temples and the monasteries taking treasures and loot with them. Later Mihail Giustiniani mentioned that the ship which conveyed all this treasure and headed for Turkey sank by some miracle although there was calm sea. Pasha Pialis left five hundred (500) soldiers and ten ships to guard the island.
After the island being conquered by the Turks, some Mahonis left the island heading for different destinations: Constantinople, their home Genoa, Italy, Sicily and India. Others paid great amounts of money to the Turks so they could remain on the island. In 1567 Sultan Suleiman died and he was succeeded by his son, Selimis II. The new Sultan was afraid of the idea that the island could be depopulated because of the ceaseless emigration. So he decided to set all the imprisoned in Constantinople free. The Giustiniani asked Selimis to give them back the island where their domination ended so unfairly, but the Sultan refused. What he did was to assign a lot of privileges to them (“ahtiname”) as well as the authority to have their religious services. The Sultan also asked for 21 children (mirakia, which means little children); he wanted the most beautiful and the most intelligent ones. The children were about 10 years old. The Turks promised to offer them great honours and rewards if they agreed to be islamized. All of them agreed to do so, except for three children who refused and they were tortured to death by the Turks.
After the subjugation of Chios to the Turks, the island became a prefecture in the Egialeti (a larger prefecture) of the islands of the Aegean Sea and Pasha Kapoudan was the governor. The prefecture of the islands Chios and Psara was governed by Mouselimis, who had bought the life-tenancy for four hundred thousand (400, 000) piaster and he would be the life-tenant for two years. |
